My A-Level Art Work

In this Blog I display some of my recent Art and Design work hoping to elate some people who are interested in contempurary art. Basically it starts on the bottom of the page with the first pieces I have done for my A-level course that started in september 2004. It then shows a variety of different pieces in order of appearance. I appreciate justified comments and critisism.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Unfortunately the head broke before I had the chance to make a plaster cast off it, because some careless individual decided to take off the plastic foil which was suppose to prevent the sculpture from drying out. Very unlucky and sad, but when I came back after my Christmas holidays there was nothing I could do about it (Thanks by the way!!! It only took me about two weeks...) Luckiliy I took a series of important photographes just before Christmas, which will go into my written coursework. This photograph is my personal favourite and probably the most important one in the collection.

Friday, March 24, 2006

This clay head is the first sculpture I have ever made, apart from what you do in junior school when you are about five. I didn't use any kind of drafts; this image just came up in my head so clear that I could work from it without any research, observational photos and so on...Again it is all about the scream, my main theme in my A2 year. It really is suppose to depict the feeling of agony, which was the reason the narrow down the details in the face. Probably most important are the empty eyeholes which makes the face become kind of semi abstarct, almost unreal! The exaggeration of other features, especially the (screaming) mouth points out the message even more. The reason to make the back look like a cramped mountain of muscles with a huge spine was to emphasis agony and give the scream in this piece a reason to exist!As I explained in my written coursework dealing with the scream the whole body reacts when someone experiences something that is so wicked that there is nothing but screaming...

Crayons - A medium that I haven't tried out so far. Quite interesting to use, because they were not tiling at all, which means they didn't really forgive mistakes! ... Made it a bit more of a challenge I guess!!!

What happens when you try the same technique with different media? Still looking at Lucian Freud I did two more studies on his technique - one in oil on canvas, on in chalk on paper...Thanks to Fidelia L. and Stephie K.

In my studies on facial expression I also included distortion. This double portrait with no proper background was an experiment on how distortion can affect the intensity of an emotion in a painting. Obviously it was anger in this case and I realized how much distortion can point out such a feeling. Ín the end it is the same thing they use in cartoons to give a certain character its nature by increasing/decreasing or exaggerating certain facial features. To do so it is essential to figure out first which facial features of the face are responsible for certain expressions and what is to be changed to increase or decrease them.

The final piece for my AS year was an eight hour timed examination with six weeks of preperation. Basically that means we had about six weeks to fill up a work journal with lots of ideas, sketches, comments and so on dealing with our topic. The given exam question was "View point", which can be interpreted in different ways. Mine was about expressing emotion in a painting by relating features in the painting to real life incidents. That means I chose to paint certain things in a special way to express something else. The theme is fear, doubt and insecurity of what is going to happen in future times. I found it appropriated to link fear with a dark forest, because it is kind of a common clichè to connect both with each other. Because of the darkness it is also hardly recognizable which direction you want to walk to find salvation and help and there is always the risk of being stopped by something blocking your way (like a tree in my painting). At the same time there are so many opportunities around you, which you usually can't see unless you actually confront them, which again refers to the dark forest in my painting. The moon, half covered in clouds represents light and help in life that varies from time to time by changing from very bright to almost unvisible depending on the thickness of the clouds. The hand protects the face of upcoming surprises, which are represented as bushes and twigs (unfortunately they are hardly visible on the photograph). The face itself expresses pure dread; especially the wide opened eyes searching for some kind of oriantation in the dark emphasis that expression.

This rather simple Self Portrait, which was more about techniques than expression is painted in oil paint onto a wooden hardboard (about 50cm by 80cm) It is the final piece for my very first unit at Frensham-Heights. However I painted it quite at the end of the school year to point out the progress I made during the year (to be compared with the first Self Portrait on the very bottom of this blog...)

Although this might not be the best drawing in case of technique and skill it is one of my personal favourites. I did it in a couple of hours intending to portray my feelings instead of my face. At that time I was really upset about how things were going and I didn't really know how to make them become better so I put all my disbelief and fear into this drawing. Most important are the areas between eyebrows and forehead as well as the oversized eyes. The wrinkles on the forehead express disbelief and insecurity and because most facial features are exaggerated the face almost becomes a caricature.

This painting is the final piece for my second unit in my AS year. It was the most difficult and time consuming project I have done so far, because of its size (about 80cm by 130cm) and accuracy. The figure is enlarged by a third to its normal size and the colours slightly distended. Especially the deep blue background, that matches up with the green eyes contributes to the very fresh and attracting scene. To make the figure become centre of the painting I chose to increase the ammount of Red in the blouse. This really points out the importants of the whole figure, not only the face.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Fairly quickly I got bored of normal portraiture, so I decided to try something new. Because I didn't really know how to get into more intense facial expression I took a different rout. I started to look at different perspectives. Here is one example of my study on perspective.

I also attended a Life Drawing class at Frensham-Heights, which was part of the course and suppose to improve our observational- and drawing skills. Looking at portraiture in generell I found it very interesting to portrait our models in a rather short period of time. I chose to publish the following two pieces on this side, because they show two different models; the female is painted in acrylic on water colour paper, the male is drawn in charcoal and white chalk onto very thin and smooth cardboard.

When I started my A-level course in Frensham-Heights School/England in 2004 I began to look at portraiture, because I wanted to learn someting that I haven't done before and which is very hard to teach yourself. Portraiture seemed to be perfect for that, especially because I realized very quickly how interesting and exciting the whole topic about face and its expression can be. Obviously I started rather simple when I painted my first Self Portrait. Acrylic paint on a wooden hard board is a medium, that is pretty easy to use, because you don't have to worry about different types of thinners, as you would have to do when you use oil paint and it dries farly quickly which also helps at the beginning, because it prevents the paint from smudging too much. After several less succesful attempts to paint/draw a (self) portrait I used a mirrow to paint from, instead of a photograph, which according to my teacher helps to avoid the painting to look flat. Even though the first trials might not be perfect in case of shape and proportion she taught me, the painting gains more Quality because it becomes to seem deeper.